DaWaRou Posts: Ranma 1/2 Season 1 Review

Hey all! My second post for this month is my review of Ranma 1/2 Season 1! I hope you enjoy it!

DaWaRou Post: Princess Tutu

Hello all! I've returned once again from the depths to bring my "rabid readers" a stunning and most glorious blog post! Today we're returning to formula with a review of a personal favorite of mine so get ready because ladies and gentlemen, I'm John Cortez and this is my 28th post for...The Broken Infinite.

Magical Girls. Of all the genre's of anime out there this is largely the one I feel most people stay away from the most. It's been done to hell and back and even back when Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon WAS trying to do something new and innovative, there really isn't anything more cliche than a Magical Girl story. That was...until this came along.

Revolutionary Girl Utena was the first attempt to deconstruct the Magical Girl genre taking the well known tropes and cliche's and turning them on their heads. It's garnered an immense fanbase and is an expertly written series but since then there have only been two other well known Magical Girl deconstructions; the extremely recent and popular Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the subject of today's review, Princess Tutu.

Princess Tutu focuses nominally on the titular “princess” but there is a tad bit of backstory that is important to the series itself. Within the story there was a man that died and this man was Herr Drosselmeyer (and yes I will assume that it’s the same Drosselmeyer from The Nutcracker). Drosselmeyer was a writer and unfortunately he perished before his greatest masterpiece could be finished. This story was titled The Prince and the Raven in which a strong and handsome prince fought a cunning and evil raven. When Drosselmeyer died, the Prince and the Raven were fated then to do battle for all eternity and so the raven and the prince escaped from the confines of the book. The prince shattered his own heart with a forbidden technique and sealed the raven away. Now, we focus on Ahiru or Duck as she’s known in the English dub, who is a young girl attending a private school and studying ballet. Duck is clumsy, forgetful, scatterbrained, and overall is often compared to a duck and this shows in her clumsy ballet. Duck has a crush on her upperclassman, the emotionally dead but handsome and talented Mytho who is dating the top female student Rue. Eventually, it’s revealed that Mytho is really the prince from Drosselmeyer’s story and in that Duck possesses the power to transform into Princess Tutu, another character from the story who has the ability to recover the lost shards of Mytho’s heart which also restores his emotions. Four things complicate Princess Tutu’s involvement with Mytho however. First of which would be Fakir, Mytho’s best friend who doesn’t want Mytho to regain his heart. Second is Princess Kraehe, the daughter of the Raven who seeks to make Mytho her own prince. Third is the fact that Duck/Princess Tutu cannot confess her love to Mytho because if she does she will vanish into a speck of light and vanish. And the fourth thing that complicates this is the fact that Duck is…really just a duck who, through the power of Drosselmeyer, can become a girl and Princess Tutu thanks to the pendant she wears. As the series goes on, the characters find themselves fighting their predestined fate and their own free will. Will this story end in tragedy or will Drosselmeyer’s tale have it’s first happily ever after?

Alright now…let me take this time to say a few things right now about Princess Tutu. Princess Tutu…is an incredibly girly series. There’s little physical combat, and most of the series focuses on ballet! Prepare yourself for it! Princess Tutu is visually a very....I don’t even know! This series incorporates lots of shades and pastels in all the right places and for a shojo series, it can get REALLY dark! At the same time though, it’s quite bright and colorful especially in the earlier parts of the series. When the characters move in this series, their movements FLOW FAR BETTER THAN ANYTHING I’VE EVER SEEN. I believe that this is largely in part because the series focuses on ballet, as I’ve already said. In a series like this the characters and their movements can't be rigid and stiff because it uses ballet so predominantly. That being said however…the designs are rather simplistic, namely those of the characters themselves. This isn’t a bad thing though and it doesn’t set off the tone of the anime. As a shojo series the characters are all quite thin with large expressive eyes and this is something that works well for the series. Another interesting thing about Princess Tutu is it’s selection of music. Now before I get into the background music of the series I should take this time to stress my opinions on the opening and endings of Princess Tutu. The openings and endings are somewhat deal breakers for me when it comes to watching anime. I usually judge the series, first on whatever I’ve read and heard about it and then the opening of the series itself and usually the way it goes is that if I like the opening song I’ll be able to sit through the rest of the anime itself. This is kind of what gets me hooked more into long running series that change their openings every so often so even if I don’t care for a particular song I know it’ll change. Series like Princess Tutu that only have about 30 episodes don’t often have the luxury of changing their opening song but every so often they’ll revise the opening or use the second half of the song a la Gurren Lagann. The opening for Princess Tutu is done in the style of a classical music piece with fitting vocals behind it and it’s become one of my favorite songs period. I’m not usually one for slower songs but this one was an exception. The ending on the other hand, while usually fitting, had a bad habit of leaving me angry after watching a depressing episode and is skipable in my opinion. Now for the background music. Princess Tutu’s soundtrack does something I’ve never seen an anime do before and that is to insert well known classical pieces into the series. This will be a plus to any and all who have an ear for classical music and even if you don’t you might develop one as I did after watching it.

Wow, that has to be the longest I've written on just the art and music and now to get onto my long list of what I like about this series and what works well in it before moving onto the negatives. Now I am personally a fan of the Magical Girl genre, despite not really watching it very often and despite Princess Tutu being placed in that category I don’t quite believe it to be a Magical Girl series. It’s more along the lines of…a supernatural drama with Magical Girl elements. Now what works in Princess Tutu? First of all, the art works wonders for the series tone as does the music. What else works for the series? The talking animals. Yes you heard me right. Princess Tutu has talking animals and for a very good reason which is my next positive about the series. Princess Tutu is a Fairy Tale. All of us have grown up with Disney and the Mouse in the Sky sugarcoating some once tragic tales but Tutu is an animated adaption of a ballet and a Fairy Tale in its own right. This is where the talking animals come into play. The setting, Gold Crown Town is a place where reality and fantasy intertwine and while many of the characters are not the least bit surprised to see human sized animals dancing ballet or walking around, Duck certainly is as are the rest of us when we watch this. Along with being a Fairy Tale Tutu does something else quite interesting and innovative and that is the inclusion and referencing of other famous fairy tales and ballets throughout the series and putting some dark and unexpected twists on their meanings. Personally I thought that the fate of Princess Tutu should she confess her love was a call back to the original Little Mermaid in which the mermaid turns to sea foam at the end of the story. Another great thing about Tutu is it’s five main characters, Duck, Mytho, Rue, Fakir, and Drosselmeyer. Most 26 episode series develop their characters in the later part of the series but what Tutu does is develop it’s characters every time they’re on screen. The changes they go through are quite fitting , at least for the four main leads. Drosselmeyer himself doesn’t get any development and frankly I don’t think the troll of this series needs any development. Duck is probably my favorite character. She’s one of those characters that really has a sense of charm about her despite her many shortcomings and these flaws often help her to win over others. One of my favorite things about Duck though is how determined she is to help Mytho. Duck is a Fifth Business, a character who is neither the hero nor the villain but is nonetheless essential to the plot of the story. Duck herself is also a major expansion of the Princess Tutu character from The Prince and the Raven. In the story, Tutu is given about a sentence worth before she vanishes into a speck of light. In the series though, she becomes a principal character and is directly opposed by the villain. Duck knows her fate should she confess her love to Mytho and while she muses over him falling in love with her this quickly takes a backseat to the job at hand of recovering all of his heart shards. I also thought that this showed a genuine love for Mytho when everything was all said and done. Another major plus for me was the ballet surprisingly. Before Tutu I’d never really been into it or paid much attention to it but it’s use in the series changed that about me as well to the point that I’m going to start watching ballet’s on YouTube in my free time. The Swan Lake story was also a definite plus for me as well. Before watching this series, the closet thing to Swan Lake that I’d ever seen was the Swan Princess and it’s sequels and yes I loved them but the Swan Lake elements were a bit too much for a little kid to wrap their heads around but it made a great animated fairy tale. In Tutu however, the elements of Swan Lake are present from the start and continue to remain all the way until the end of the series. Tutu and Kraehe’s outfits are heavily based on the outfits of Odette and Odile from the Ballet and much of the music is from the Ballet itself.

Now for the negative aspects of this series. first of all Ducks friends Pique and Lille don’t work well for the series. Pique is okay but I wanted to strangle Lille and I was glad when she wasn't in the series. another negative would be the repetitive nature of the first half of the series. for the first few episodes, Duck finds a heart shard, becomes Tutu, dances the problem away and returns the shard to Mytho, rinse and repeat. But while this quickly ceases to be the norm, I think that some people watching it will be turned off to how repetitive it is. And…that’s about all that I can think of other than the ending song in my personal opinion.

Now, I realize that any men reading this review will probably laugh it off as something that only girls can get enjoyment out of  but THAT is wrong. Real Men watch Princess Tutu! If you can still watch Disney movies like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast as a man past the age of 15 and be prideful about it like I am, then this series is perfect for you. Princess Tutu is a gripping tale that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the end come the middle of the first half. It starts off a bit slow, but it just keeps going and going all the way without letting up pulling off twists and turns that I didn't think possible for any series. this series is great for people of all ages including small children. There’s barely any fanservice and it’s all quite Disneyesque in the way I think many of us would like to see Disney, dark but positive, thought provoking but enjoyable without being preachy. However….those expecting a classic fairy tale ending…never mind I won't say it! I give Princess Tutu a 10 out of 10 for being practically flawless and even the flaws don’t distract from the series itself. Anyways, that's all from me! See you next time with another review! DaWaRou~!

DaWaRou Posts: My Top 20 Favorite Tsundere Characters

Hey everyone! After an especially long hiatus, I think I'm ready to do these blogs on a....more or less weekly basis like I used to be able to! This is actually my first blog post that I've done since I started working so it's kind of exciting! So get your reading eyes on and let's jam cause I'm John Cortez and this is my 27th post for...The Broken Infinite.

I know that I've talked about Tsundere characters in the past. They're those characters that a lot of fans love, hate and love to hate and hate to love. They're hostile, bitterly angry and frustrating to watch as they deal with emotions that they're either not used to dealing with or just trying to deny what they're feeling for the person that they're obviously going to get with...most times. But there's a very specific charm to them...even if I'm not entirely sure what it is. I actually like Tsundere characters. Their antics are usually played for laughs so they're good for comedy if nothing else and sometimes they're more than just one note characters! Sometimes they go through that wonderful thing called character development where they actually begin to change! And so to celebrate the Tsundere characters which I love so dearly, I'm writing a post all about the ones I particularly love! Please note that this list is NOT in order. There are simply 20 Tsundere characters on here that I happen to like a lot and it's hard for me to do these top whatever lists in the first place but I needed something easy to talk about to get myself back in the blogging biz so this is it! My "Top 20" Tsundere Characters...in no real order!

We're starting off nostalgic here with Digimon Adventure/Digimon Adventure 02's Ishida Yamato or just Matt if you watched the English Dub. I love Matt! He's easy on the eyes...when he's older first of all so points for being Bishonen and check out that cool hairdo he had as a kid! But we're not here to talk about the merits of Matt's good looks and awesome hair, we're here to discuss his character. As a Tsundere, Matt is firmly a Type A Tsundere. He's not exactly cranky or perpetually angry but he is rather aloof and detached from the group at the start of the series. When the other kids, especially Tai did something that he thought was wrong, he was very quick to jump down their throats about it and his softer side only arises when his little brother T.K. is involved. He often goes all out to save and protect T.K. so I'm very glad to say that he's not a very romantically inclined Tsundere character that you see so much of in anime and manga. Also, Matt's Tsundere behavior leads to one of the best, if not THE BEST confrontation between child characters in a children's anime where he and Tai come to blows with each other not once but TWICE! I love violence in kids cartoons and Matt being...er...the practical one, could often be capable of cruel actions against the enemy when the situation called for it.

Taking off the nostalgia goggles for a bit now we get to those pesky RomCom Anime Tsundere characters and I really cant think of a better way to start it off than with Zero no Tsukaima's Louise Valliere. A lot of people DON'T like Louise and it's easy to see why. She's overly violent, heavily emotional and treats her poor human familiar Saito worse than an abused animal. But from a character standpoint, all of her actions make complete and total sense. Louise is a noble and a Mage and her failure to use any of the four elements of Magic has resulted in her being branded the local failure by not only her classmates but her family as well. She then boasts proudly about being able to summon a grand and spectacular Familiar but she ends up with modern Japanese School boy Saito Hiraga, further damaging her already wounded pride. To add even more insult to injury, her familiar has free will...you know...being Human and everything and insists on trying to run away from her causing her to call upon one of the other students for help in getting him back. While Saito does relent to being her Familiar, being Human, Louise has him doing menial labor and Saito being Saito has not only a wandering eye when it comes to other...better endowed girls but a smart mouth to boot. In essence, while not all of us would react by grabbing the nearest studded whip or riding crop and then proceeding to beat our disobedient Human familiar to a bloody pulp, it makes perfect sense to Louise. All that said though, she is a Tsundere which means that she does have a much gentler side to her. She very quickly falls in love with Saito for his bravery and courage and his unwillingness to just let her die at the hands of whatever danger befalls her. She's much sweeter than she lets on really there's just so much Tsun covering the dere but the dere is there!

Ahh, the Fanservice Tsundere character! The character who often complains about people gawking at her scantily clad body in the revealing outfit that she herself put on. That's not Yoko. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's bodacious bikini clad sniper is probably the best Fanservice character I've seen in YEARS! Yoko's Tsundere personality only presents itself in the early half of the series with Kamina, to whom she's romantically attracted. Once spoilers happen, Yoko almost completely losses this aspect of her personality but it reappears once again once Nia is introduced. The fund thing about Yoko is just how much fun she is. She can be a typical girl, feminine and weak but she's rarely the latter and when she is it's refreshing to see that she's ALLOWED to be weak. She can be a total badass. Yoko immediately picks up the slack once shit happens and she never once wavers in the decisions that she makes. She's also allowed to be jealous. Once Nia appears and wins over the entire crew, Yoko is the only one to completely mistrust her. Normally jealousy is played negatively but here, it's just natural. And finally, Yoko is also allowed to not have a life confined to just being a fighter. Yoko has the ability to be anything that she wants to be and she takes full advantage of that.

Shonen style Tsundere characters have never quite been so emotionally detached, distant and sadistic as Shaman King's Anna Kyoyama. Well...they probably have but I haven't seen any others. Anna is completely no-nonsense. She aspires to become the Shaman Queen and despite her own formidable powers as an itako (a traditional Japanese shaman) she prefers to take a very present backseat, allowing her fiance and our protagonist Yoh Asakura do all the footwork for her. She's basically his trainer and she makes DAMN SURE that Yoh is ready for whatever comes his way because she refuses to marry a weakling. In her initial appearances, one wonders if she really does love Yoh at all and is simply a vain and arrogant childhood fiance mooching off her groom-to-be but in a chapter where Yoh allows an angry and vengeful spirit to take control of his body and the spirit admits his plan is to kill Yoh with his own body, Anna breaks down into tears for the very first time. The fun thing about Anna though is how tough she is. While she clearly see's differences in people's personalities she completely expects them to be at their best at all times and holds everyone to particularly high standards. When threatened, Anna never bends and never folds, insisting that everything go her way or no way at all if she can help it because even she realizes that her power has limits. She's fun to watch and one of the reasons why I can't stop recommending Shaman King to other people!

Another nostalgic one here. I'm pretty sure that most of us who grew up in the 90's remember Keiko Yukimura from YuYu Hakusho which was and still is one of the greatest shonen anime ever made. Keiko's got spunk and like Anna, she doesn't take any shit from her love interest, our protagonist Yusuke Urameshi. While she isn't oozing with depth and falls into the pretty standard category of the "Love Interest" character, Keiko still manages to hold her own among the other characters. She's one of the driving forces in Yusuke's life, always providing him with a reason to keep fighting regardless of how fed up he is with his whole gig as Spirit Detective. What's more, Keiko gets a really great moment early on in the series where she tells Yusuke, possessing his "best friend" at the time, that in a hundred years she'd never forget him as there are ways that he speaks and moves that are just cemented in her memory. She's determined to wait for him to return to life and even provides the life energy he needs to return. Were Keiko one of the combatants of the series, I'm positive that she'd give up everything for Yusuke in the same way that he does for her time and time again. On the note of Keiko's Tsundere characteristics, she's predominantly only Tsundere with Yusuke but funnily enough, Botan's attempts to hide the truth about Yusuke's supernatural activities also bring out Keiko's TsunTsun side.

Of all the girls in Ranma 1/2, Ukyo Kuonji is by far my favorite. She seems to have the most down-to-earth personality among the four of them and while she's just as much of a Tsundere as Akane Tendo, she probably has the most "history" with Ranma which causes him to she her in a completely different light than any of his other prospective suitors. Ranma never knew that Ukyo was a girl when he first met her so when he clears up the misunderstanding with her when she tracks him down after all the years, Ukyo agrees to wipe the slate clean and return to the game of love as Ranma's new "cute fiance". Ukyo is also the first of Ranma's fiance's to wholeheartedly confess her love to him and besides Akane, who he lives with, his relationship with Ukyo is without a doubt the most positive relationship he has in the entire series, but it's not without it's flaws. Ukyo gave up on her womanhood after Ranma and his father ran off on her and dedicated her life to cooking and martial arts and when they rekindle their friendship, Ukyo immediately begins acting as if nothing has happened and they can move on the the next phase of their relationship...dating. An entire episode of the anime was devoted to Ukyo trying to shake off Ranma's image of her being just one of the guys and trying to be more womanly which throws the whole city into chaos. While Ranma is aware of her feelings for him, he simply refuses to let those feelings get in the way of his and is determined to keep their friendship as it is.

Ah...yes. Akamatsu Ken-sensei's works. I've been looking forward to this one. Chisame Hasegawa from Negima! Magister Negi Magi may just be the epitome of this character archetype without it completely defining who she is like it does with other characters. ChisameNegima will attest to, Chisame life becomes anything but normal once she gets involved with her child teacher and local wizard, Negi Springfield and when I say involved I don't mean romantically or sexually. In fact, Chisame is the first to realize the very real danger that Negi will be in once he becomes older as he's already charming multiple females in her class at only 10 years old. During the magic world arc of the series, Chisame takes the place of Asuna as the maternal/adviser role to Negi and he comes to consider her an invaluable member of his team. Chisame is more or less Tsundere with everyone. She puts on the guise of one who hates everything but she really loves the life she's living full of friends and fantasy and she wouldn't have it any other way.

I think that the Tsundere character type works really well with characters from wealthy backgrounds. The lives they live kind of give them those rough edges that we've come to associate with Tsundere characters...at least in my opinion. But in this case Eri Sawachika from School Rumble is a very refreshing Type B Tsundere. She's wealthy, but it doesn't completely define her character and while it comes up often, it's not something we're beat over the head with. She's friendly, but she has her limits especially when it comes to our protagonist and her love interest Harima. But this has an adverse affects on the friendships she forms with some of the other characters as anyone else's perceived interest in Harima can turn her stone cold. What's more, Eri's partially defined, at least to others that don't know her, by her looks and has a bit of a complex about it so that's also a refreshing character trait. I especially love her relationship with Harima as he's kind of always there to save her when she needs him to. At one point she's about to be married off to someone and she manages to convince Harima to propose to her to break of the engagement. On the downside, the ending to School Rumble is rather vague as to whether or not Eri and Harima get together which if you ship them can drive you up the wall.

At last we get to the leading lady in the twin tails from Negima! Asuna Kagurazaka is initially defined by her very Tsundere personality and strange immunity to Magic at the start of Negima!. But even though this part of her character is never fully lost, she does move a bit past it becoming the second-in-command of Negi's team and the MVP in any combat situation. She's involved in every major battle of the series and is always Negi's go-to partner when he's in a jam. I espcially like Asuna because she's very unwilling to overlook the fact that Negi is simply a child and tends to treat him more like the adult he acts like rather than the child he appears to be. Even though she takes on more of the role of the older sister to him, Asuna usually defers to Negi in moments of a crisis as he's the Wizard and should, in theory, know how to get out of the situation they've landed themselves in. In addition, Asuna's character is intricately tied to Negi's as revealed much later on in the last major arc of the series. I also highly enjoy Asuna's relationships outside of the one that she has with Negi. She becomes best friends with Konoka's bodyguard Setsuna and ends up learning kendo from her for the sole purpose of protecting Negi, she's best friends with both Konoka and Ayaka even if she won't admit it and she takes on a more supportive role for the Negi/Nodoka relationship later on. I also like the fact that while Asuna chastises Negi for being childish, she's very prone to immature outbursts, but as a Tsundere this is to be expected.

By far one of my favorite Tsundere characters is Akane Tendo from Ranma 1/2, largely because I believe her actions towards Ranma himself are usually pretty justified. Akane grew up without a mother figure to teach her how to be more feminine, with the exception of her big sister Kasumi who took on the maternal role in the household. She's known largely for her beauty and especially her martial arts ability so the upperclassmen at her school have come to the conclusion that any who want to date her need to best her combat which blow her chances at entering into a normal relationship without serious harm coming to her boyfriend as I'm pretty sure that if she just picked some regular boy from her class, he'd be beaten black and blue in no time at all. Next thing Akane knows, the ball is dropped on her that she or her sisters will be married off to a man they've never met and when that man is revealed to turn into a girl when splashed with cold water, Akane's sisters then just pawn her off onto Ranma under the "justification" that since Akane hates men and Ranma is half girl, they should be able to get along great. Adding futher insult to injury is the fact that Ranma's female form is far more attractive than Akane's natural beauty and he's got women beating down the doors of her dojo claiming to be engaged to him. Add Ranma's callous and blunt personality to the mix and Akane's very short temper and you've got quite the justified Tsundere. But explanation aside, Ranma and Akane do end up falling in love with each other and she mellows out considerably in the manga.

I FUCKING LOVE To-LOVE-る!!!!  I LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT! And I love it SOOOOOOOOOO much for it's characters, this one in particular. Yui Kotegawa is the head of her school's disciplinary committee and has no time for "harenchi" or shameless behavior. Someone really should've told her that she's a character in Fanservice Incarnate. Yui's interactions with protagonist Rito Yuuki are hostile at best to start off with. She initially believes him to be a threat to the school's public morals and that he and Lala are just a bunch of shameless perverts...namely him. But over the course of the series Yui begins to warm up to Rito and considers him a friend before finally coming to the conclusion that she's in love with him. She has a really great chapter in the sequel series To-LOVE-る ダクネス, where she finally relents that boys will be boys and she can't help it if Rito does perverted things but she does make it clear that she doesn't mind and above all WANTS Rito to only do shameless things TO HER! Yui starts off as an extremely uptight character but eventually mellows out into a very likable love struck girl who's fully ready to devote herself completely to Rito.

Here's another one that everyone loves to hate. While I can't defend Naru nearly as well as Akane, it's not like she's a wholly unlikable bitch. Naru is basically the template from which all other Tsundere characters are practically molded. In Naru's defense, at least she's a WELL DEVELOPED Tsundere character, switching between Tsun and Dere far more consistently than many other characters of her type. While she see's that Keitaro is a loser, she accepts him for who he is. And the love that she feels for him confuses him. An entire two volumes are devoted to Naru sorting out her feelings for Keitaro. Yeah, she's got an entire 14 volumes to do that but hey at least it gets addressed. She also ends up dating and finally marrying Keitaro which is a lot more than I can say for other harem characters.

I love male Tsundere characters when they're obsessive and pretty much gay. Hayato Gokudera from Katekyo Hitman Reborn might just be the poster boy for the trope Bodyguard Crush. He's constantly fawning over protagonist Tsuna and loudly declaring that only he can be Tsuna's right hand man. Hayato is extremely Tsuntsun with EVERYONE in the entire cast with the sole exception being Tsuna who feels the full force of Hayato's Deredere side. Granted, this is one of the few times that the personality shift is noticed by just about everyone in the cast. This is also one of the few cases where the Tsundere isn't romantically interested in the protagonist, but don't tell the fangirls that. It'll break their hearts. And finally Hayato's personality gets him in trouble with another of Tsuna's fans and the primary target of his Tsuntsun side, Takeshi Yamamamoto the normally easy going baseball nut turned deadly mafia samurai. Takeshi points out that Hayato's constant pushing away of everyone makes him completely unfit to be Tsuna's right hand man as the right hand needs to be able to delegate when the boss is unable to and should therefore have positive relations with the other members. While Hayato's personality remains mostly the same after this conversation, his actions towards the other members of Tsuna's family are much less rooted in malice and hatred as they once were and he finally begins to see them as allies.

This is not the first time that ChiChi has ended up on one of my lists. This hot mama from DragonBall is another nostalgic one and I really like ChiChi. I said in my "Top Anime Moms" post that I was fully on board with ChiChi's decisions to not allow Gohan to partake in life or death battles, greatest power in the universe be damned! But more to the point, ChiChi is Tsuntsun with EVERYONE if her family is involved in any way. This is made apparent when Goku dies and Krillin is tasked with informing ChiChi that her husband is dead and her only son has been taken by Piccolo. She FLIPS! It seems that growing up has turned her into mainly a Type A Tsundere when as a child she was more of a Type B as she was very sweet on Goku and tended to overreact to any danger with TsunTsun anger. What's more, ChiChi may be far overshadowed by the awesomeness of all the males in her universe, but being a housewife has not at all diminished her Martial arts ability. This woman made it to the semi finals of the World Martial Arts Fighting Tournament and fought against Goku himself!

The Assistant Master of the Kamiya Kasshin Style, Kaoru Kamiya from Rurouni Kenshin is next! Kaoru is really less of a Tsundere and more of a Yamato Nadeshiko in training. She's more than capable of her Tsuntsun outbursts and expresses them often at the start of the series but she's more or less intended to be a girl in that transition stage of becoming a woman. Kaoru serves as the anchor for series protagonist Kenshin. So long as she's alive, Kenshin has something to keep him from wandering away again and a chance to settle down, not completely but enough to call some place home. She's the favorite target for anyone wanting to get under Kenshin's skin but Kaoru's no damsel in distress and if she's capable of it, she'll get out of a situation all by herself without help from anyone. Moreover, I like the fact that Kaoru is really a backseat character, even among the main cast. She's tough, sure, but that doesn't mean that she needs to be at the forefront of the battlefield at all times. Hell, her 10 year old apprentice gets into more life or death battles than she does. But all in all, Kaoru is an ideal Tsundere. Supportive, strong and always there when Kenshin needs a little extra motivation.

In my experience, it's very rare to see a female as the lead character of a shonen series. Not super rare but rare enough and rarely done well. While the titular Soul Eater may make up one half of the duo, Maka Albarn is more or less the series protagonist. Then again there are like 5 other series protagonists so...whatever. Maka! First of all, Maka is far from being the overly sexy female lead like Yoko or even InuYasha protagonist Kagome Higurashi. The series makes it very clear that Maka is still just an underdeveloped girl, though that has it's own perverted cult of worshipers. She's flat as a board, brainy and not at all the ideal beauty like some of the other female characters that appear are. She's socially awkward and like the ideal Tsundere, she doesn't take too kindly to her partner's wandering eyes. But moreover as to why I love Maka is because she's BADASS! How often is it that you see a girl her size wielding a weapon like a giant fucking scythe?! And she wields it so effortlessly too as if she's always been doing it. Mind you that scythes are not at all ideal weapons for combat. The large blade makes it weighted on one side making it extremely awkward to wield but if there was a way to fight with a scythe, Maka's probably the one to lean from. And like other series, like Gurren Lagann the series remembers that Maka's a girl not for sexual purposes but for emotional ones. Shes' allowed to be vulnerable, her relationship with her father is estranged to say the least and she's rather insecure about her abilities as a Meister. And yet day after day she continues towards her goal of making Soul into a Death Scythe and ACTUALLY succeeds in doing so. More importantly, Maka's Tsundere personality is rather downplayed which is always nice.

Ohh, this one is one of my favorites! Cardcaptor Sakura is probably my number 1 favorite anime series thanks in no small part to it's cute and likable protagonist, the titular Sakura. But Li Syaoran is another reason why I love it. That's probably because when he was first introduced, I despised him utterly but as the series went on I grew to love him immensely. Li comes from a very magical family, one directly related to Clow Reed the maker of the Clow Cards Sakura has been tasked with capturing. Li enters the picture in episode 8 to relieve Sakura of her duties and he's always there commenting on how little she knows about Magic and criticizing her performance due to his immense knowledge about the cards, Magic and their powers. Eventually, Li and Sakura become something along the lines of allies before becoming friends and that's when his Tsundere personality starts to come into play. But it's not till the last season of the series where a new potential love interest for Sakura is introduced. Li is easily flustered when it comes to girls and Sakura in particular since he realizes that he's in love with her. The two make the most adorable couple ever...likely due to their young age and it's wonderful to watch Li go through the motions of experiencing what it's like to fall in love with someone.

This one's a tie...because the characters are virtually identical though one has far more characterization than the other. These lovely ladies from Detective Conan are Ran Mouri and Kazuha Tomoya. They're the most Tsundere characters of the series though in most cases the Tsuntsun is left to Kazuha while Ran's mostly Deredere. Both are experts in their preferred martial art, karate for Ran and Aikido for Kazuha and both are madly crushing on teen detectives that they've known since childhood. The sad thing is that both of these characters are rarely utilized to their full potential. Ran, in the first episode alone, is shown capable of punching a hole in SOLID CONCRETE with her bare hands and not thinking very much of it. Kazuha also, in her first appearance takes out a criminal. I want to see these characters utilized more! MORE I SAY!

I LOVE ASUKA LANGLEY SORYU! She's basically my sole reason for putting up with Neon Genesis Evangelion. Asuka might be the best Tsundere in the history of Tsunderes. Why?! BECAUSE I SAY SO DAMMIT! Asuka's the famed Second Child, created in a test tube for piloting the Evangelion. She's got a college degree at the ripe old age of 14, speaks 3 languages fluently and revels in combating the Angels as well as the praise she gets after a job well done. She's bratty, egotistical, abrasive, self centered and extremely full of herself and her abilities as well as harboring a crush for everyone's least favorite protagonist Shinji Ikari. Asuka is very attracted to Shinji but it's hard to see why given the context of the series and the differences in their personalities. The main problem between them however is their extreme differences in personality. Asuka is loud and forceful while Shinji is quiet and submissive. Asuka loves him for exactly who and what he is but the forcefulness of her actions only push Shinji further and further away from her and her flirtations with him simply make him feel awkward and her feeling rejected. Also as Shinji's relationship with Rei deepens, so too does Asuka's hatred for the latter and her metal state begins to deteriorate rather rapidly. Mind Rape doesn't help this at all one bit. But I love Asuka. I love how she simply gets away with saying horrible and nasty things to others, as well as the way she seems to take delight in tormenting Shinji both physically and emotionally, which in and of itself isn't all that hard to do. But most of all, I LOVE how its' all played rather darkly. Asuka has crippling self esteem issues and reacts angrily towards others partly out of a fear of intimacy and partly because she's angry at the world. Her hatred of Rei stems from the fact that she perceives Rei as a compliant emotionless doll, Asuka's own personal hatred of dolls and the fact that Rei gets along so well with Shinji. Needless to say, this being Evangelion and all, Asuka's character development is played as tragically as her back story and proves that not every Tsundere is played for laughs.

And we finally come to the last one on the list. The selfless Knight from Princess Tutu (aka THE GREATEST ANIME EVER GO WATCH IT GO WATCH IT GO WATCH IT) Fakir may very well be one of the best developed male Tsundere characters ever devised and his series is only 26 episodes long. Fakir is in a very unique position in the series. He knows that Mytho is the Prince from the storybook and is doing everything in his power to keep Mytho away from his emotions but at the same time, he deeply cares for Mytho and wants nothing but the best for him. This tends to come across as Fakir being Mytho's angry violently possessive boyfriend to most of the viewers and him being a massive dick to everyone in universe...though both serve to up his sex appeal. His relationships with BOTH of the girls are initially thorny at best. He views Rue as a distraction for Mytho and Duck as merely a nuisance. And then once he learns of Princess Tutu herself he sees her as the true enemy as she's the only one capable of restoring Mytho's heart. Once Duck is revealed to be Princess Tutu and Rue's part in the plot is expanded upon, Fakir's very Tsuntsun nature was present but he was able to put it aside to work with Duck to save Mytho. Fakir never loses his Tsuntsun side but his deredere side is allowed to shine though much more often in the second half of the series. He struggles not only with himself and his personal fears but the growing feelings he has for Duck and trying to save Mytho. All in all Fakir journey of self discovery should not be missed.

And that's my list! If your favorite Tsundere like Taiga or Kagami didn't end up on the list that's too bad cause its' my list so go make your own. Please look forward to more posts from me in the future! IT'S GREAT TO BE BACK, DAWAROU~!

DaWaRou Posts: Shaman King

Hey everyone! Guess what! IT'S OFFICIALLY BEEN A YEAR SINCE I STARTED WRITING FOR THIS WEBSITE! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! And I'm massively way below the number of posts I SHOULD have after writing for a year now. But with Halloween very much upon us in this lovely fall time of year, I've decided to do (surprise surprise) another series review! Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm John Cortez and this is my 26th post for...The Broken Infinite.

So with Supernatural/Fantasy themed series, there's a LOT to consider using and not using. Most manga and anime by extension will rarely focus on a single supernatural creature and will more often than not focus on many. The American live action series Supernatural is a prime example in that while it largely focuses on Demons and their fucking up the human world in later seasons, the show still follows a very monster of the week format, introducing a new monster or demon or supernatural entity almost every single episode. The series that do tend to focus more on a specific type of being are usually more romance orientated or horror oriented if you want to go that route and nine times out of ten, Vampires are often the creature of choice to focus on. What do Karin, Vampire Knight, and Tsukuyomi MoonPhase all have in common with Hellsing, Trinity Blood, and Blood+? They all focus on Vampires and their relationships with humans, some in a romantic sense, others...not so much. But one of the other super big things in the supernatural/fantasy genre is Ghosts. The afterlife is a very mysterious thing and practically EVERYONE has an idea or wants to know what happens when we all finally die. Series approach this in different ways. Series like Bleach, YuYu Hakusho and DragonBallZ all portray an afterlife and to an extent how it interacts with our world. But other series like what we'll be talking about today are directly built around the idea of live humans directly interacting with the deceased. Today's series is, among my personal favorites, Shaman King!

Yes Shaman King! The series that, I believe, officially put Hioyuki Takei on the map! I fucking love this series! I love it VERY VERY VERY MUCH! And now I'm going to talk about it!

The plot is this: Yoh Asakura is the most recent in a long line of Japanese Shaman, people who can not only see Ghosts and Spirits, but also interact with them. In series they're described as a link physical link between this world and the next and so they've got special powers that allow them to allow Ghosts and Spirits to possess them at will and utilize their abilities by acting as a fully mobile medium for the Ghost/Spirit in question. Yoh has recently moved from his family's home in Izumo to Tokyo, a big city full of wandering spirits to further his training and find himself a Guardian Spirit. Think of it in Pokemon terms and he's basically looking for a Ghost to be the Pikachu to his Ash Ketchum. On his first day at his new school he runs into the local midget, Manta Oyamada and after saving his ass in a cemetary after subsequently getting poor Manta jumped by the local gang, the two become friends because Manta can also see spirits, he just lacks the spiritual power to use them in the same way Yoh can. Yoh also recruits the Ghost of Amidamaru, a very powerful samurai as his Guardian Spirit and soon enters the Shaman King Tournament after receiving some harsh training from his no nonsense fiance Anna who is determined to make Yoh win the tournament so she can be Shaman Queen. Yoh himself has been wanting to enter the tournament for some time now so that he can achieve his goal of living a lazy and easy life. So what does the winner of this tournament win? Well, they basically get GOD as their Guardian Spirit and rule the world for 500 years. In addition to his after mentioned goal, Yoh also has a rather personal reason for winning the tournament. Every 500 years, his ancestor Hao, the very first Asakura, reincarnates into the Asakura line to win the tournament and this time, he's reincarnated as Yoh's, literal, evil twin. Yoh must now defeat his bother with the help of his trusted friends to save...effectively all of the regular humans from being whipped off the face of the earth by Hao and his followers.

The first thing that I must praise Shaman King for is it's OUTSTANDING art work. Like most manga, the character designs for Shaman King start off very rounded before becoming more angular like most anime and manga designs are. But for some reason, I just feel myself being very strongly loving this particular art style. Compare THIS

which was drawn at the very start of the series and was...I think the first full color splash page of the series, to THIS

which was drawn...at a later point in time which we shall not talk about. The context is already strange enough without my spoiling anything. In all honesty though, I really do just love Hiroyuki Takei's art style even if I can't pinpoint exactly WHY I love it so much. On the flip side is the anime which was animated in the early 2000's and...doesn't look all that great in all honesty but it doesn't look all that bad either. It DOES come off as looking rather...cheap though if I'm being perfectly honest. The music is actually really good though going all the way from the background tracks to the openings and endings to the character image songs. Among the cast are popular female seiyuu Megumi Hayashibara, Yui Horie, Nana Mizuki and Romi Paku! The English Dub was produced by 4Kids Entertainment, and to be perfectly honest it's a fine dub. I really like the Shaman King English dub, if for nothing else than pure honest effort and nostalgic value. That said though there was some definite dumbing down in the translation from Japanese to English but most of the dialogue is similar enough for anyone to grasp what's going on. Of particular note, since it wasn't something that 4Kids could very well hide, there was a very real and definite threat of death in this series, and it's made all the more clear whenever Hao is being...well Hao. At one point, Yoh goes to plead with Hao to NOT kill the plucky side characters as they've no chance against him and are frankly no threat to him. Hao's like "Imma kill em" so Yoh decides to take on the team himself as if he's going to kill them, both to show them that they can't handle Hao and to stall them until Hao is declared the winner of the match by default. It was a powerful episode...in a way for not only giving the reason as to WHY the plucky team was so determined to fight Hao and it serves to really let the audience know that Hao WILL NOT fuck around or throw a fight for ANYONE regardless of their overall threat level to him.

So what's there to like about this series? Well, basically everything. Shaman King is an old enough shonen series to really get away with the long running tournament arc type set up while still doing new and interesting things DURING that arc and having entire arcs within that arc. The Shaman King Tournament is where most of the memorable cast comes into play as well as introduces everyone's desires and motivations for wanting to win and the lengths they'll go to to achieve those goals. Of course Hao stands out as one of the most "evil" of the characters in both methods and motivations but we also get the X-Laws, a group of Shamans who've united in their pursuit to kill Hao and, just like Hao, they're completely willing to kill anyone who gets in their way or to be more brutally honest, anyone who doesn't want to join them which is just like Hao. And they're supposed to be the good guys because they've all suffered horribly at the hands of Hao and they're just and righteous because they ANGELS as their Guardian Spirits and...and they dress in all white so you know that they're supposed to be good. They also unfailingly follow the orders of a little girl who spends all her time in a medieval torture device. And even then, morality is never the name of the game because any particular point of view can be sympathetic and just when framed the right way...as Shaman King does so very often and very well. The next thing that the series does really well is character development. Like other shonen series, in Shaman King the moment Yoh defeats someone they're likely to become best friends and this extends to a very large part of the supporting cast. Ren, Horohoro, Ryu, Faust, and Lyserg to an extent all start off as "antagonists" or basically just opponents who want or need to defeat Yoh in order to move on to the next round. Ren in particular has some of the best character development as is I think usual for characters that start off as villain antagonists. And then we get right back to Hao and his followers and the X-Laws and they're all compelling characters, even if their actions are framed in an objectively negative light. More to the point OF the characters themselves, not a single one is wasted or useless. While not all of them contribute to the overall plot, they're still entertaining and enjoyable which is exactly what good characters should be. The action scenes are well drawn along with practically everything else and the emotional scenes make you feel exactly the way you should feel, happy, sad, angry or any other emotion a particular scene is going for. The comedy is excellent. Most of the jokes work and even the ones that are kind of lame are...halfway decent in their own way. While it's slow to start, Shaman King does very quickly settle into what it wants to be.

The negatives are few but still important to take note of. In particular the series suffers from two very glaring flaws. Those being it's opening and ending. The series is very confused throughout the entirety of it's first volume. It's not quite sure what kind of story it wants to be because it starts off kind of like Pokemon where Yoh is hellbent on getting as many Ghosts as he can to join him and he starts solving the problems of the living or the dead one at a time. THEN Ren comes into the series and shit gets a WHOLE lot more serious REAL QUICK. It was never NOT serious but...side adventures with Ghosts to almost getting murdered by another Shaman are VERY different things. At least Ren was...kind of foreshadowed and the series is called Shaman King so it's kind of begging the question of who is it or who is it going to be. The other BIG BIG BIG problem with the series is it's ending. The anime goes for a very InuYasha style "Eventually we'll get to something offscreen" kind of bullshit that most anime/manga fans hate and then the manga goes and does the same thing by making some bizarre Sleeping Beauty analogy using Hao and Yoh's group. Takei realized that this is NOT the proper way to end the series and thus Shaman King Kangzen Bang was created to give the series a proper ending. Wanna know what the problem with that is? You can't get it in America unless you're willing to read manga online in which case...you can do just that. I honestly don't see WHY Viz didn't licence it as it wouldn't have hurt their sales one bit but whatever.

In conclusion, Shaman King, while by no means a perfect creation, is still a very popular and beloved one. It took a tournament arc, based an entire series around it and it really stands out as a "classic" shonen manga to me for many reasons. One, it's memorable as hell. You don't finish a series like Shaman King and then forget you ever even read it to begin with. It's something that stays with you for most of, if not, your entire life. Another thing, it's written well. The characters, while they're not the most original by a long shot, are still fun and enjoyable and wonderfully written. If there's one character you don't like, there should be five others that float your boat just fine. And finally, it's got a perfect reason for having its characters all fight it out to be the very best Shaman in the world, which makes it's Tournament arc completely justified. While that might not make it a classic to some of you, it definitely stands out as one to me. I'm John Cortez and here's hoping for another great year with even MORE blog posts!

DaWaRou Posts: Fullmetal Alchemist

Hello again everyone! After FINALLY managing to snag myself a job that pays well, I've finally found the time to return to blogging...on an irregular basis. No point really trying to get something up every week at this point when I know that it's really not going to happen. But I will be getting posts up and that's the point! I'm John Cortez and this is my 25th post for...The Broken Infinite.

Today I'll be going over one of the most beloved anime series of all time. No!!! Not Madoka Magica! I can't review that without spoiling it. No, today we'll be going over one of the first series most of us that grew up in the 90's saw on Cartoon Networks Adult Swim and the personal favorite anime of the brilliant anime reviewer JesuOtaku. This is Hiromu Arakawa's masterpiece, FullMetal Alchemist.

Don't you just love seeing all the characters in one picture? Anyways, just to give you a heads up, similar to JesuOtaku's review of the series, I'll only be covering the very first series, not just because I like it more, which I certainly do, but because I feel that it's a touch more substantial than the very recent anime remake, Brotherhood. I have much fonder memories of watching this than Brotherhood and while I do LOVE it, I like the first series much better so without further ado, let's dive right in.

The plot is this: In an alternate world where alchemy has become the predominant scientific advancement, two young alchemists, Edward and Alphonse Elric attempt the most forbidden kind of alchemy known as Human Transmutation in a desperate effort to bring back their dearly departed mother, Trisha Elric. Things...don't quite go as planned as Ed loses his leg while his brother loses his entire body. Ed then sacrifices his right arm to bind Al's soul to a suit of armor. A few years later Edward becomes a State Alchemist with the title of Fullmetal and he and his brother embark on a quest to find the legendary Philosopher's Stone which is the only thing in the world that can possibly return them to normal.

As most of you know there's SO MUCH MORE to the plot than that, but that's just the bare basics of it. The simplest explanation of the plot of FMA is the two brothers, Ed and Al, trying to find the Philosopher's Stone to return their bodies to normal but there is overall a much larger plot that the two brothers find themselves woven up in even way back at the beginning of the series. But before we dive into any plot related specifics, lets get all the technical stuff out of the way first.

Visually, Fullmetal Alchemist is a great looking show. The character designs alone are impressive for a cast so large and the music is equally impressive in terms of openings, endings and background tracks. I'm being simplistic here because the visuals of Fullmetal Alchemist were never really the part I cared about the most. Of course it looks good, a series this good based on such a great manga would only receive the best looking anime adaption but looking at it, it is slightly jaw dropping. Not jaw dropping like say Madoka Magica which had the benefit of being done by Studio Shaft which normally produces...visually interesting works in one way or another, but jaw dropping in the way that just makes you say, "Wow, this is a really great looking show.".

Now, like with most of the other series I review, I'm going to start off with the negatives of Fullmetal Alchemist because...well I don't want to just start gushing about it right off the bat. So, let's get down to business. Personally, I don't find there to be too many flaws but...here we go. First of all, those who come into Fullmetal Alchemist after previously watching only standard shonen like Naruto, InuYasha and Bleach, you will suddenly be asked to use a lot more brain power than what was called for for other standard shonen fare because Fullmetal Alchemist is not standard shonen fare, it's well above average. And so to some people, who just don't know better thought provoking anime, Fullmetal Alchemist will seem extremely preachy and heavy handed with intellectual, philosophical and even some religious under and overtones. Preachy is also another word that one can use to describe this series. It's very preachy and repetitive with a tendency to repeat and rehash morals from episode to episode. Above all is the Elric's or more specifically Ed's very cynical view of religion and the series takes it's time to paint religion in a not so pretty light. But given the real world use of religion for negative purposes like starting wars and justification of personal vendettas, you can't say that the series doesn't know what it's talking about. And then there are things like the brothers angsting over something for however many episodes or existential crisis's that overall lead to nothing very productive that just come across as annoying and stupid in my opinion. Then there are the sheer number of stupid choices and decisions that the brothers make which do nothing but hinder their cause but then again this can also be excused by the fact the brothers are teenagers and don't always act with the best judgment. Characters can be annoying with certain running gags or character traits or tics but other times these can be rather funny. Another possible "complaint" about the series is it's use of "filler" episodes. Now in this case I say "filler" with the quotes because I personally don't consider any episodes in the first series to be traditional filler meant to pad the series along in the lulls when the anime has caught up to the manga. Like One Piece (and I largely believe that for One Piece this is much more of a subjective personal opinion) the filler episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist add to the characters and serve to flesh them out a bit more. The early filler episodes I especially regard as canon because we have no idea what the Elric brothers did during their travels and this first series serves to show exactly what they have done. A final thought before I get into the real positives about the series is it's attempt to humanize and reform past antagonists and morally bankrupt characters in the latter half of the series. I speak for myself personally when I say that I want my villains and antagonists to remain villains and antagonists. There are exceptions, this show's characters being a few, but overall I think that's what most people want. Once again though, the way that it's handled here is what makes it one of my exceptions to the rule that villains should stay villains.

But let's now move onto the many positive aspects of the show. First of all, Fullmetal Alchemist must have one of the greatest dubs of all time! I'm sure the original Japanese version is great, in fact I've heard it is, but I just can't get over how amazing the dub sounds. Everyone from the minor to the major characters plays their parts well and it just sounds so natural that you'd think that this was real and not fiction...at least until you hear them talking about alchemy and transmutation circles but even then, the dialogue sounds like things that real people would say. I'm not going to bother listing standout performances in the dub because by this point, everyone already knows who's who. Actually, there was ONE stand out performance in my mind and that was Scott McNeil's performance as Hoenhiem, the Elric brother's loving but absent father. I don't know why I love this character's voice so much but I DO and when he was replaced in Brotherhood with the equally talented John Swasey I was...rather disappointed despite the equally great performance. To me this performance was the one that stood out the most in my mind, despite the stand out performances that most people tend to go on about. Getting into the world itself, Hiromu Arakawa has created a wonderfully involving and interesting world that practically runs on Alchemy, this sort of pseudo magical form of science that breaks down and reconstructs matter into whatever the wielder wishes. From the basics of fixing a radio to the more advanced things that we see Mustang and a later former state Alchemist with a thing for explosives. Ah yes, those State Alchemists, THAT was a very nice touch. I've RARELY seen a fantasy world that openly acknowledges it's military, let alone a military armed with such a sophisticated art like Alchemy and it's handled VERY realistically which is another touch that I really really like. Getting into the world itself, lets talk about the characters that inhabit it. There's not a single out of place or useless character in the bunch here. EVERYONE has a purpose, EVERYONE has a part to play and EVERYONE does it extremely well. There are the main characters, the Elrics and then there's the military, the characters the Elrics meet during their travels, the characters that the Elrics grew up with and a slew of other well rounded and solidly developed characters there's someone here for everyone. The action scenes? Top notch! This series has some pretty solid action sequences and it really shows just how much work and money was put into some of them. But overall, Fullmetal Alchemist has two seriously solid strengths. The first would be it's blending of various things. I'm going to quote JesuOtaku here as she better explains the components of the series.

"Fullmetal Alchemist stands out as that rare creation that tries it's hand at several dozen things; comedy, drama, cold science fiction, inspirational fantasy, political commentary, action spectacle, heartwarming family anecdote, psychological and shock-jock horror and sometimes juggling multiple tones in one episode...and it succeeds at all of these things." (JesuOtaku Anime Review: Fullmetal Alchemist)

It's funny how I want to be a writer and write for a blogging site yet I, for the life of me, am unable to properly cite quotations. And I'm a community college student, go figure. Anyways, as the quote says above Fullmetal Alchemsit is that very rare shonen masterpiece that not only tries but succeeds at doing so many things that many other shonen series not only fail to use but usually rarely even try. If anything most shonen stick to...inspirational fantasy, action spectacle, comedy and drama. Those are usually blended decently but rarely as flawlessly as they come off here and while they can't be considered bad series in that right, they're just not as good as FMA. The next best thing that FMA has going for it are it's more important thematic elements those of sacrifice or Equivalent Exchange as they constantly talk about throughout the series and of family. But above all, I think that one of the things that really stands out to me about Fullmetal Alchemist is that, along with really getting it's universe and characters, it does the Tragic Backstory right. I've seen a lot of anime that try to make characters deep or interesting by pulling the whole "Dead parents" thing but you'd be surprised how often it actually works...from my perspective at least. Hell, FUCKING BATMAN rarely does it right in my opinion but this series does because it gives more than a shit about it's characters, ALL OF THEM. And that stands out the most to me in the handling of the Elric brother's backstory and their mother, Trisha Elric. The series takes a whole episode to demonstrate how deeply the brothers care for their mother and really make her into arguably one of the best...Dead Moms Walking to the point that you're actually rooting for them to bring her back from the dead. And what's more, the brothers actually learn from the failed attempt and set aside different future goals for themselves rather than letting that one single event consume them for the rest of their lives.

There's so much more about the series that makes it great but by this point you either already know what those other points are or there are different parts of the series that make you as an individual like it. Until next time, DaWaRou~!

DaWaRou Posts: Katekyo Hitman Reborn, Part 1 The Review

Hello everyone! I'm back today with a review rather than a news story so YAAAAAAAAAAAAY! Anyways let's not waste any time in getting into this because depending on how I do this, it might end up as a two posts instead of one. I'm John Cortez and this is my 24th post for...The Broken Infinte.

So...going into this blog post, I'm a little apprehensive. I like the series that I'm reviewing, don't get me wrong but...there's just soooo much to loathe about it. No, its not Naruto or Bleach. I already did one of those a while ago and it wasn't all that good anyways. Today...we'll be looking at Akira Amano's long running Shonen series, Katekyo Hitman Reborn.

No point turning back now. The plot is this: Below average  dimwitted loser Tsunayoshi Sawada is probably the biggest loser on the face of the earth. He's scared of almost everything, his grades are horrible, his looks are...meh and he's completely inept at all things in life. In other words, he should be the lead of a Harem series as opposed to an Action series. But his life completely changes when a baby in a suit and a fedora shows up at his house one morning claiming to be Reborn, the worlds greatest Hitman and the one who shall be Tsuna's home tutor. He tutors Tsuna by physically abusing him in every way possible but that's besides the point. He also is constantly shooting Tsuna in the head with magical bullets called Dying Will Shots which will revive a person so long as they had a single regret when they were shot with it. This is nothing compared to the veritable bomb he drops on Tsuna at the end of episode one in which he explains that Tsuna is the tenth generation heir to the illustrious Vongola crime family. CONGRATS TSUNA! YOU GOT A MAFIA! Never mind the fact that Tsuna is only in middle school and is totally not cut out for being the boss of a mafia family. Reborn just keeps insisting that Tsuna gather people to become part of his new "Family" and ends up inadvertently recruiting several of his school mates. There's Hayato Gokudera who's all deredere on Tsuna but tsuntsun with everyone else, Takeshi Yamamamoto the kind hearted star of the school baseball team, Ryohei Sasagawa the EXTREME head of the Boxing Club, Kyoya Hibari the head of the Disciplinary Committee who WILL..."bite [you] to death" for even the slightest offense against him and others including Lambo a five year old from another mafia family who keeps an assortment of strange things in his afro, and the mysterious Mukuro Rokudo and his associate Chrome Dokuro who seem to have a time share using Chrome's body. Comedy and action ensue.

Okay, so getting to all that technical shit about the series, both the anime and the manga look...pretty good. I personally prefer the look of the anime though for the simple reason that it makes the characters look a bit more mature in my opinion. Everyone in the manga is drawn with that whole bishonen/bishojo look to them and personally while their anime counterparts look just as good, I think that they loose some of the...I'm not sure but they loose something and look just a little bit better. Speaking for the anime though, lets get onto the music. It's...all decent in terms of BGM. A touch repetitive, what anime isn't in their selection of BGM but it definitely doesn't hinder anything. For the voice acting, it's top notch! Reborn is the only series I really really know of to have concerts specially put on by the seiyuu who dress up like their characters and sing openings, endings and image songs and for some of them they look JUST LIKE THEIR CHARACTERS! IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY! As far as those vocal pieces go the notable standout among everything the series has to offer is the group known as Cherryblossom who perform a number of the shows openings and endings including Dive to World, Cycle, Sakura Rock and my personal favorite of theirs Yume no Manual.

So...here comes the part of the review where I get tempted to split it into multiple parts because while Reborn is a personal favorite series of mine, it's by no means the best series I've ever watched. It's really pretty average shonen when you think about it and the only thing that makes it stand out from the crowd is the "mafia" twist it has and while there are a lot of good things about it, there are a lot of not so great things about it too. So here's what I'll do. I'll make this a 3 parter. This will be the first part where its' pretty much just the straight basic review of the series and my brief opinions on it. Then I'll do another post in which I go over the biggest problems the series has and another post going over the best things about it.

So as for my thoughts on the series, I think that Reborn had a lot of work and effort into it and I personally really like that. The series, like most other shonen series, tires it's hand at comedy and action and most times it works really well while other times...not so much. There are times where a funny moment will fail miserably and times where the action seems completely pointless but that's just the kind of over the top series that Reborn is. In fact, that's a good way to describe Reborn. It's over the top. Not anywhere near as over the top as Gurren Lagann but it's pretty up there. The characters, as we'll get into later, are probably the real strength of the series. From their designs to their personalities, they're all...unique in their own way from the obnoxious Lambo to the eccentric Haru to the completely unpredictable Reborn himself. That's not to say that they're all useful as we'll also get into later on but they're very good characters in my opinion. The plot lines are also standard shonen albeit with a mafia twist to them which is kind of...refreshing in a way. It'd be a bit more effective if the viewer actually LEARNED something about how the real mafia worked but its' fiction so why should we expect it to resemble reality in any way.

So...those are my basic thoughts on Reborn. Overall, I find it decently well done, but not a masterpiece and could've definitely have been improved. The following blog posts will primarally focus on the Reborn anime as opposed to the manga and this is because I haven't read all the manga. I've watched all the anime and can talk about that much better! So...see y'all later! DaWaRou~!

DaWaRou Posts: Viz "Actively Negotiating" Rumiko Takahashi anime titles!!

What's up everyone! No point in idle chitchat, let's get straight to business. I'm John Cortez and this is my 23rd post for...The Broken Infinite.

So...it's funny how the things you complain about not having suddenly turn around and fall right into your arms. I'm sure everyone's had an experience of this happening to them in the past. Those times when you're moaning about not having any money and then you just happen to find the amount that you need or want. Well, today's news story is something like that only it applies to what I want! See, Viz Media is currently in "active negotiations" about two old series that were probably among the very first they dubbed, and one of which being one of my favorite series period Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2!

I'm not quite sure if anyone out there truly realizes how much I love and respect this series! I know that...it's really not as great as it could be had the series decided to keep going with the kind of ongoing plot it had for...what...eight volumes and three seasons but that's not to say that what came after those wasn't good in it's own way. The last arc of the manga was actually probably the best the series had been in a long time and I always liked how Ranma managed to mix comedy and action in a way that really really worked. It had a wide net of interesting characters all of which were strong enough to level the city in which they all lived in no time flat and it wasn't all just pointless filler, some of it was rife with character development! But sadly, the series has fallen out of print and Viz has lost their licence to it, which brings me back to my main point that Viz is negotiating to get the licence back along with that other Takahashi series I never really cared to watch called Maison Ikkoku.

Personally, I'm pretty excited and I really hope that Viz gets the licences back because I've been complaining for a LONG time about how Ranma was pretty much the first series that Viz ever dubbed but its' not available for legal streaming on their website with fellow Takahashi series InuYasha. Maybe Viz will eventually try their hand at licencing Urusei Yatsura...again...I think. Anyways, that's all folks! Here's hoping that all goes well! DaWaRou~!

DaWaRou Posts: Nurarihyon no Mago to get spin off manga!

Once again, I need to start this post off with an apology. I apologize to EVERYONE here at The Broken Infinite for not keeping up with my workload, even though I promised that I would from now on. If you read my post the last time I did this at the start then you already know what I'm going to say so I don't even need to say it at this point. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm John Cortez this is my 22nd post for...The Broken Infinite.

So...what're we talking about today? Well, I can tell you one thing, it's not a review. *GASP* "But...John Cortez," you ask, "what could you possibly do that's not a review of a series that you love wholeheartedly?! And most importantly...why?!"

The answer to this is simple. I'm covering a news story. Yeah, cause you know...shit actually happens in the anime/manga world other than fanservice. New series pop up, others end and in this case some get spin-offs. As to why I'm doing this, well first of all I need a change of pace so in trying to do a new post every week every other post will be a news story significant to the anime/manga world. Well not "significant" like...I don't know, "Naruto's ending in a month" but you know just things that happen that I have an opinion. In a weeks worth of news there has to be something that catches my eye and something last week did.

Nurarihyon no Mago is getting a spin-off series called Nurarihyon no Mago Gaiden ~Keikain Yobanashi~ Gankyū Shūshu-ki. The original series tells the story of Rikuo (that's an AWESOME name) Nura who is, believe it or not, the heir to a Yokai Yakuza (not sure if that's the best way to describe it BUT it always came off that way to me) and is himself 1/4 Yokai. His grandfather is the legendary Nurarihyon, the former Lord of Pandemonium and he wants to pass the title onto his quarter Yokai grandson, Rikuo who is determined to lead a normal human life. Needless to say, shit happens to change his mind rather quickly as Rikuo, being a quarter Yokai takes on a Yokai form only at night who has a much more confident and leader-like quality to him.

Now, I quite like Nurarihyon no Mago. I find it to be a mix between InuYasha and Katekyo Hitman Reborn, and a very decent and well thought out mix as well. It's nothing worth winning any awards for best creative idea or anything but it's entertaining and endearing and the art style...OH MY GOD THE ARTSTYLE! The manga's more...Ukiyoe esque artstyle fits very well with the series and I love it VERY much. So, imagine my surprise when I discover that after ending...about 8 months ago that it's getting a spin off series. There are PLENTY of other...more worth while series that I love DEARLY that I think deserve a spin off MUCH MORE than this series but it IS getting a spin off focusing on...Ryuji Kekain.

So...the guy with the black and white sense of morality, the guy who wants to kill EVERY YOKAI and the guy who's shown to be a pretty big dick in the original story is getting his own spinoff series...? I suppose the question is why? Why not do this for a more interesting character? Well, your guess is as good as mine. I'm John Cortez and...I'm not sure if I'll be reading the Ryuji spin off. DaWaRou~!